I have presented about innovation in education. With the help of technology and other kinds of approaches to Student Centers and i wanted to direct this to kind of book for education with children at about a proposal for the kind of book to talk about projectbased learning and social and Emotional Learning and blended learning. And the proposal just wasnt that convincing the i talked to my agent about why and i said 915 kids go to Public Schools and what i meant is that thats is not a lot of room for innovation in Public Schools these days because our schools are being held accountable for the outcomes of these very weak and limited standardized tests and test scores dont capture what teachers are trying to accomplish with these are the sorts of experiences and models. And so thats what it feels like not break in fencing innovation story here. My agent said youve got to write about that. Youve got to write about the gorilla in the room which is the standardized testing. So i set out bravely but afraid to combat what i would be a very dense project in terms of come and it turned out to be sorted history, policy. When you write about Higher Education is a very diverse and sort of independent sector of our society but in k12 this is the america. This is public. This is one of our biggest public expenditures, one of our biggest expenditures very. 50 million children, half of the children are poor. You cant write about school in america without writing about politics, race and class. All of these issues come into a standardized testing in a row strong and unsettling way. To talk about that yet to go public not to beginning to discover of the bell curve and its earliest applications in whats known as psychometrics on the science of measuring the human mind. I was really personally floored to discover how the foundational mind to establish psychometrics Charles Spearman and many, many more, they did so fundamentally from a conception of intelligence that was fixed hereditary and unitary. That was what was called the g. Factor. What was called the iq and they really believed that everybody having their brain some kind of microprocessor with a given capacity or speed and if you measure that you would be able and then to plan and predict the best outcomes for those people. If its unsettling to you it should because the guy who brought us the foundational figure in psychometrics a cousin of Charles Darwin and a child prodigy also coined the term eugenics. He created many foundational social science techniques through aggression, the coefficient to measure what he believed was a fixed quality in human beings. And testing psychometric testing became employed in many different contacts to sort and correct for difference amongst people. And as weve established this brought society in america and try to make it a land of opportunity it was also extremely competitive and the benefit in our society were unequally distributed and has always been an equally distributed. The ideal of a meritocracy or the fiction of a meritocracy determined by testing became sort of a safety valve. We had this conversation who gets what in society, what resources, but you can point you educational test and say theres a path forward for people who work hard enough and are smart enough and therefore, have an open society. And whats really kind of astonishing when you look at the history, up to that point, it is after brown v. Board of education standardized tests now called achievement tests took a very different turn and they begin to be sort of put forth as an instrument of equity and something is going to erase the vestiges or the legacy of the process of desegregating schools. They would use this test to measure what was now called the achievement gap and the differential achievement of people from different backgrounds are merely lower income and minority groups was now something that was going to be overcome with rigor and hard work. And i believe that many of the people who adopted this vision were wellintentioned. There was a strong undercurrent in educational theory in the 60s and 70s that talk about the effect when you to raise our expectations. We cant be complacent about the hard work of making sure every child has the resources they need to achieve. When you talk about why we have standardized testing why we have no child left behind, the number one argument is we didnt have it then teachers wouldnt care about these kids they wouldnt have to be responsible for these kids and they would just say, you know, as long as the kids are getting breakfast im doing my job. Ive never heard a teacher actually profess this. Its always been an opinion you put on someone else but nevertheless this is the idea. And so this is a dilemma we have right now. We have these test the they have severe limitations in the educational assessment or tools that teachers use every day to give feedback about learning and to diagnose and to help students direct their efforts and help teachers direct their efforts. Assessments are not the problem. The issue we have right now is high stakes in standardized assessments only math and reading. We do for a long time like nutritionists have known for a long time, if you talk to the folks at the big test companies, at least the ones i got on the phone, they will take that these tests are used in place they were never intended for. They were never intended to be the sole fulcrum on which we base enormous decision about what schools open and close about what teachers lose their jobs. Even about whether individual students are promoted from one grade to the next. Especially not that because standardized achievement tests are optimized look at a population. They dont tell you all that much about individual students. However, these tests have been used in all kinds of ways that they are not intended for. It doesnt mean that we dont need clear and actionable data about the performance at the recent student in every single school. It may very well be that we do need that in a row for schools to improve they will need that kind of information. The impasse were at right now is not just the expression of recipes test ever want to get rid of them but what is going to replace of these test. I spent the first out the book going through the argument against testing the arguments how it impacts teachers, impacts students, families, how it impacts the cost of equality how diverse schools are actually the ones that are more in danger of being sanctioned under no child left behind, that obviously were wasting money on these tests because the money that is spent is not going towards improving teaching and learning. That the slight improvements weve seen under no child left behind in student achievements are in no way greater than what we saw before no child left behind happen. Theres no evidence it has any beneficial effect in increasing and making the achievement gap small or in improving our international standing. And i talk about the common core and the common core test that students are taking right now, and the fact that they were touted as a huge improvement. And many teachers that i talk to see some value in the standards by the tests themselves are not enough of a departure from whats gone on before. The independent panel of experts at Columbia Teachers College that reviewed the assessments concluded that they do represent an improvement nothing like whats actually needed. Linda a library to make him scholar at stanford on assessment that they just they dont actually match the standards because its impossible to produce a larger machine graded tests to cost 30 to administer and have that sf deeper learning. This is sort of the air we run into again and again in our system where we believe its going to be more scientific to optimize our Education System to the outcomes of many, many, many test the more tests we have all local to each test becomes that of the situation right now where these tests are the individual items are written by the lowwage, low paid workers with minimal qualification. And thats why when you have a portion of a test that is graded by the same type of person, a person hired off of craigslist. So the more that we the more attention we put and focus we put on these tests, the more problems we get because were trying to cheap out by adding to make us on to the roster. And in the book and yesterdays commercial larger urban School Districts the cost the country to come and test what you get students were taken stand the test of from kindergarten to 12th grade . [inaudible] 113. Between 10 and 30 a year 30 is the most, the highest weve seen except when we at 31 in a year. And mandates are following from districts as well because when you attach some highstakes to test the School District is going to want to administer a test to see of the kids are going to do on the test, a pretense a post test, a diagnostic test. A benchmark test. None of which are completely clear to parents of course and also not so much to teachers as well. I want to talk a little bit about the solutions that i address in the book and then throw it open to questions. I found every single one is so different, people focus on different aspects and the defense of what you come in with expert is someone to spend plenty of time on the question. But when i talk about teacher testing of the dead into port. We need a better account of the system and you also need better assessments. The accountability system, this takes attach to the district right now under no child left behind and used it as our guide to School Reorganization enclosure, graceful tai chi teacher evaluation, tied to funding decisions that affected states and the money is being held over states. To get them to agree to certain things. Ive been there also affecting student in some ways thats the most detrimental effect because we know that assessments are part of students form a mindset and an attitude about learning and the fact that we are making school about these tests really inculcate is fixed mindset conduct with original thought about, something are born with. Thats not the kind of attitude were trying to instill now nor in the future. So there arent many detrimental effects to the testing but without this takes it would be not much more than an annoyance. So think about how to do accountability, if you care about accountability, and i think its fair to care about accountability, that theres a proposal in congress that developers no child left behind on the republican side are they are talking about basically eliminating federal standardized testing requirements and going back to an older situation where states just have to say that this sort of good faith statements to the federal government about what they are doing for student achievement. Some people feel like thats too high a degree of state and local control for how to reproduce accountability this balance. One proposal, again this comes from linda darling, they talk about resource the candidate or reciprocity and accountability in the idea being that why do we just told our schools accountable for the outcomes will redouble our dishes and states accountable for inputs, knowing that tim income and zip code is such a massive factor in determining Student Success and yet only 14 states even attempt to equalize or make progress of the funding and partitions and richer districts. We expect the schools that have the least to work the hardest to overcome whats been conceptualized as the achievement gap. You could easily talk about the resource gap. Its really what were talking about. Resource accountable is one way of looking at it another interesting approach in terms of accountability of looking at longterm factors, local factors, and now many more states are attracting students from prek and to the workforce. This raises its own question in terms of data and privacy but also gives us the ability to ask much Bigger Picture questions about what really makes Student Success of its that kind of longitudinal information that gives us the insights such as the idea that half of what students need to succeed is noncognitive skills, nonacademic skills. That comes from tracking students from high school into the workforce. The preschool project very famously providing this real ironclad evidence about the effect of high quality preschool and students throughout their lives. That was again achieved by tracking students throughout their lifetime. Instead of asking questions about a student proficiency at a point in time we could use longitudinal evidence to talk about a schools performance efficient performance, a student scores over a lifetime and what we as a immunity to be doing to help that child succeed. So those are some of the approaches to account for about and about and then theres testing. We know these tests have a faulty concept at their core, a faulty construct, this idea of this iq. Even if you want to say okay, maybe iq israel, maybe theres natural variation in human intelligence, but so what . Once you have measured at that how was that giving any information in terms of that persons education or how youre going to help them learn right . We really need to know how to approach learning, what is the motivation, how do they work overtime. Theres a lot of interest right now and whats called selfassessment. This is the idea of all the smaller pieces feedback or her assessment that teachers get in the classroom on a daily basis if we could somehow job that up we could get a big picture, of learning over time. There are programs that come into play now that would be possibly giving really broadbased evidence of Student Learning over time and trajectory of Student Learning over time is what we are really interested in. Site talking about about the valley of performancebased assessment and why its important for students to have an understanding of knowledge they are tension and interdisciplinary projects and Group Projects that allow them to demonstrate skills and collaboration, 21st century skills and technology. Testing is nearly integrated into the voting process, the teachers who work in performance Assessment Schools which is 20 high schools that dont give state exams have much Better Outcomes in terms of dropout rates and college persistence. But the key metric i find convincing is that the teacher turnover rates are so much at the schools. Teachers are committed to this week teaching and learning because of their work as true professionals, designing the assessment and collaborate with other teachers across the different schools. Finally i talk about technology and other ways that technology can be used to gather broadbased evidence of student achievement. We have a 19th Century Technology in use right now to a multiplechoice test which comes from the fact that someone invented a meter that could read a graphite pencil and electrically scored many test pages at once and were still pursuing that model to date even though were starting to computers, starting to the internet. So what is the 21st century model for assessment . I call a team unicorn in the book because it might be mythical but the idea is many of our students have an experience a really great expense of getting feedback through games. Games teach you how to play them asas you play the games get instant information about where youre going and how youre doing. Games always offer a chance to try kennedy better the next day. Organizations in redwood city are working on creating games for learning and assessment where the game is gathering evidence that students Decision Making and creating of models students understand really higher order cant test contest. Again like simcity come here like the mayor of the city in this particular game you got to place the power plant and you got to worry about pollution jobs and worry about electricity and all of these things interact in different ways. This is a game that isnt tested systems thinking. So the idea is your student has a black box idea of a causes b. Or ive able to go role of different variables in reducing different outcomes and the desirability of that outcome. Again is evidence that is the basis of a judgment by a human being because what we are reaching for in the next generation of test is not an arbitrary verdict that is rendered by a machine by information that a big trip in teacher, student parent can make better decisions us to learn and whether or at a point in time. That is all well and good when it comes to technology but we know that our policy is not based on the best or most available evidence. The question we have right now as parents and teachers and students is what happens next . I talk to parents and about movement and students in out that movement who decided that the best way to respond to test is not to take them. I talk to leaders in the Teacher Movement is the testing as a focal point of a much broader debate about how we support Public Education in this country and where were going with it. I deeply this is going to be decided just as much at the ballot box as it is in the realm of research and the realm of accountability so the question that prepares, innuendos kids in the School System for anyone who is in relationship to the future at all what are you going to do about the testing situation . Thats my 30 minutes. Thank you so much. [applause] [inaudible] i have three kids so different, and i just how i see it just from those three little examples 99 faster and 120 of test is the emotional factor that is involved. I cant say this child is closed source and is a child but they are so emotionally different. One of them just freaks at the testing they actually tested, the weird thing is he tested superhigh on on the sort of come like a pacing test or speaking but then like superlow on something else. It like makes no sense. Spent the social and emotional aspect of testing is what import. Im glad you brought it up. Testing anxiety affects 2540 of test taker takers Strong Enough to depress the results. It is that you overlooked factor in how we interpret test results because what you looking at is the performance of people who are not affected by anxiety and the performance of people who are. So were missing out on a ton of talent and a ton of them and were telling successful pe